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Yuniesky Betancourt
Yuniesky Betancourt (born January 31, 1982, in Santa Clara, Cuba) is a Major League Baseball shortstop for the Kansas City Royals. He resides in Boca Raton, Florida. Cuban leagues His early career was spent in the Cuban leagues, including Villa Clara of the Serie Nacional. He was considered the fastest second baseman in the Cuban leagues and the star of the Villa Clara team. In the finals against the Industriales in , he got a hit in nearly every at bat, though the Industriales won, 4 games to 0. He left Cuba on a speedboat in December 2003 and ended up in Mexico, where he played for a while before signing with Seattle Mariners scouts Bob Engle and Patrick Guerrero on January 26, 2005http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/sea/downloads/y2009/sea09_Players.pdf. He made his major league debut on July 28, . Professional career Seattle Mariners in .]] Betancourt's calling card has been his fielding. In his first few seasons, he was fast becoming one of the best fielders in the game, combining excellent range, quickness, soft hands, hand-eye coordination, and his strong, accurate throwing arm. He was named one of the top fielders in baseball in a online fan's poll. In 2007, he made many good fielding plays. However, he suffered through spells of throwing wildness that season. Bad throws accounted for most of his 18 errors in the first half of , almost as many as his total of 20. He turned things around and made only 5 errors in the second half of 2007. His defense suffered in , with several fielding metrics calling him one of the worst shortstops in baseball. Betancourt has been a decent hitter with some gap power who rarely strikes out or walks. He has been criticized for his lack of plate discipline and inability to bunt. In 2006, he walked only 3.0% of the time, the second-worst percentage in major league baseball. However, he only struck out 9.7% of the time, one of the top 20 percentages. Betancourt was among the league leaders in batting with runners in scoring position and game-winning RBI in 2007. In a late season game in 2007, former Mariner Mike Blowers referred to Betancourt as being "unreal" when batting with runners on in close late games-a result at odds with his career statistics. He hit his first grand slam in a 7-6 win against the Chicago White Sox on August 11, 2007. In 2008, he again walked only 3.0% of the time, the worst percentage in Major League Baseball. His strikeout rate dropped to 7.5%. He also saw the fewest pitches per plate appearance of all major leaguers, 3.15.http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2008-pitches-batting.shtml Kansas City Royals On July 10, 2009, he was acquired by the Kansas City Royals along with a portion of his salary for Minor League pitchers Derrick Saito and Dan Cortes.http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2009449321_yuni11.html In 2009, he had the lowest on base percentage of any starter in the major leagues, at .274[http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/seasontype/2/sort/onBasePct/count/115/order/true Player Batting Stats - 2009," ESPN, accessed October 9, 2009], and the lowest slugging percentage in the American League with .351. References External links * Category:1982 births Category:Living people Category:Seattle Mariners players Category:Kansas City Royals players Category:All-Star Futures Game players Category:Cuban people of Black African descent Category:Major League Baseball players from Cuba Category:Major League Baseball shortstops Category:People from Santa Clara, Cuba Category:San Antonio Missions players Category:Tacoma Rainiers players Category:Northwest Arkansas Naturals players